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Deservedly so too! tough decision on weather to stay or not would be horrible to see a new manager come in and ruin what you have created, i'd possibly stay one more season and try to replicate to the best of your abilities the amazing season you've just had.

I see a few pro's and con's for both to be honest, and I've just about come to a decision.......

Originally Posted by deltablue

Not surprised to see you honoured.

I just hope that if I leave the club then I'm not automatically wiped frm the list!

A stunningly dominant performance from us, albeit against San Marino wh played with ten men for over an hour. Wayne Rooney kept up his amazing England form with another hattrick, and Swansea man Jason Malpass got his first England goal in our 7-0 victory. Our next qualifying match is away in the Ukraine, before a likely group decider at home to France.

In preperation for the Confederations Cup in Russia, we travelled to Sweden for a final friendly, and we had a real competitive game which swung this way and that. Eventually we came away with the win, which was thoroughly deserved.

In just a few days time the squad for the Confederations Cup is named, and I'm hoping Scott Sinclair will be available after missing these games because of an ankle ligament injury.

Last edited by tomtuck01; 16-04-2012 at 10:10.
Reason: Corrected the location of the Confederations Cup. Stop saying it's in Brazil Tom, you fool!

I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this career. Taking Swansea to CL glory is a magnificent achievement and I am sure the temptation is there to leave on the highest possible way with the quadruple.

Will you take a year out of club management and go for glory with England at the World Cup? Will a new offer in the summer temp you into a different league for a new challenge? Will Swansea break the bank to keep their most successful manager ever?
Looking forward to the next update.

I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this career. Taking Swansea to CL glory is a magnificent achievement and I am sure the temptation is there to leave on the highest possible way with the quadruple.

Will you take a year out of club management and go for glory with England at the World Cup? Will a new offer in the summer temp you into a different league for a new challenge? Will Swansea break the bank to keep their most successful manager ever?
Looking forward to the next update.

Thanks alot for your kind words.

If i do leave, then as i have said previously it would be to focus my attention fully on England in preparation for the 2018 World Cup. From there it would take a monster offer to persuade me back into club management before the World Cup is over

I have to admit i am leaning towards leaving the Swans. I think my job is done here and that their is little else to achieve.

Mate you are a god; winning the quadruple and going undefeated in the same season!?!? Definitely the greatest FM achievement I've seen. I think you should leave Swansea, it really won't get much better and you could easily spend years trying to replicate that season.

Mate you are a god; winning the quadruple and going undefeated in the same season!?!? Definitely the greatest FM achievement I've seen. I think you should leave Swansea, it really won't get much better and you could easily spend years trying to replicate that season.

I think "god" is a bit much, for now.

I keep thinking back to the away game against Inter in the group stage of the Champions League. If only we'd avoided defeat in that game, we'd have then gone the whole season without losing in every competition!

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I have decided to stand down as manager of Swansea City.

Over the last four years I have had the most wonderful of times, and that has made this decision all the more difficult for me to make.

However, when I was appointed England manager a year ago, I, along with the Football Association, and the board of Swansea City, agreed that I would take the job on a part-time basis so that I could continue my work with Swansea. We agreed that come the end of the season the situation would be reviewed ahead of the Confederations Cup so we could all decide whether I could continue to perform both roles.

Following the long and successful season we have just gone through at Swansea, I have come to the decision myself that the time is right for me to step down as manager of Swansea City so that I can devout my time fully to the England job.

With just a year to the World Cup I feel that the national team needs my full and undivided attention, and do not feel I can do that whilst I remain with Swansea. These are the reasons I have decided to step down. This decision was mine and mine alone, and I was put under no pressure from the Football Association to make this decision.

I would like to thank all the players and staff who have worked at the club over the last four years for their tireless efforts in helping to bring success to this great club. I would also like to thank the chairman, Huw Jenkins, and the rest of the board for putting their full trust and belief in me.

But most of all I would like to thank the fans. Their unwavering support over the years has been a source of great inspiration to me, and I hope that whoever follows me as manager will continue to give them the success they deserve.

Good decision a season like that would be extremely hard to follow. Looking forward to seeing the World Cup and perhaps even more interested in what club job you take next. As you know be prepared for your successor to completely ruin the work you did at Swansea. Good luck dude.

Good decision a season like that would be extremely hard to follow. Looking forward to seeing the World Cup and perhaps even more interested in what club job you take next. As you know be prepared for your successor to completely ruin the work you did at Swansea. Good luck dude.

I certainly won't look forward to checking on how they are doing after my departure.

To my pleasant surprise I have remained on thie "Icons" list. Never seen that before after departing a club.

It may look like I have been biased towards my former Swansea players with the squad selection, but they are all there on merit. The one who I guess will be of the biggest surprise to you is Leon Britton. But he was called up to the squad for my first game after Jack Rodwell withdrew through injury, and he hasn't looked back. In his nine England caps so far, he has an average rating of 7.34, with one assist and a pass success rate of 91%. To say he doesn't deserve his place would be absurd.

Starting XI For First Game

Jack Wilshere will come into the side for Tom Cleverley when he has served his one match suspension, and Scott Sinclair will be in the line-up ahead of Danny Welbeck once he has regained full fitness.

Very brave choice. I'd find it so hard to leave after everything. Even after falling a bit from a brief moment as English and European champions (with some aging players and money running out), I found it hard enough to leave my FM11 Ipswich side that I backtracked the first time, and decided to make a hasty return after I did so, I just couldn't bear to leave a side I'd grown very fond of.

Very brave choice. I'd find it so hard to leave after everything. Even after falling a bit from a brief moment as English and European champions (with some aging players and money running out), I found it hard enough to leave my FM11 Ipswich side that I backtracked the first time, and decided to make a hasty return after I did so, I just couldn't bear to leave a side I'd grown very fond of.

I thought it was a case of now or never to be honest. If I'd have stayed on and not had such a successful season next term, I'd have wanted to stay on the regain the success of this season.

Hello again Tom, would it possible to get a screenshot of your tactical instructions? as i love the way you have your team set up and playing, i have similar formation and i was just hoping your current tactic could maybe help me tweak mine to make it as effective as possible.

Hello again Tom, would it possible to get a screenshot of your tactical instructions? as i love the way you have your team set up and playing, i have similar formation and i was just hoping your current tactic could maybe help me tweak mine to make it as effective as possible.

Amazing work with Swansea, looks like they are in safe hands with Benitez .

Good luck with England!

Cheers.

Not convinced that Benitez is the right man myself, i can see the same thing happening that did at Internazionale when he replaced Mourinho. But he has started by making a couple of good signings so i'll be keeping an eye on how things go there.

I'll also have to hope that my England players continue to get regular football under him.

A pretty good group stage for us, even though we did end up finishing second on goal difference. We started with a confident 3-0 win over New Zealand. We should have converted our domination into more goals, but still it was good start to the tournament. We kept things up against Colombia with another solid win, and with the Ivory Coast wniing against New Zeland later in the day, it meant we were through to the semi-final stage.

In our final group game against Ivory Coast, we had to win to top the group as they had a superior goal difference. However, I decided to rest players who's fitness had dipped a little and those on a yellow card. They gave us a really tough game, but had it not been for a late error then we would have won the game. As it was, it finished 2-2.

Other Group Standings

Brazil were negative in winning this group, drawing 1-1 with South Korea, and beating Mexico and Russia 1-0. The hosts, Russia, were very poor indeed and are not looking in good shape for the World Cup next year.

Because of our failure to wn our group, we would face Brazil in the semi finals.

A really top performance. We scored our goals early and from then on our job was pretty simple - stop them. We did it well, keeping decent possession while creating some chances to add to our lead. I loved how we played in this game to be honest, to restrict them to just four attempts was excellent.

Final
v.Mexico

My first international tournament won! It wasn't a great performance, and Mexico are a very good side. But we just about came through in the end. The attempts at goal/on target stats make it look like they dominated, but of those 27 attempts only two of them were clear cut chances, and eleven were long shots. Of our 16 attempts, four were clear cut chances and only five were long shots. That reflects that we made the better chances, and on that basis I felt we deserved it. Just.

Hopefully they will have something even bigger to thank me for after next years World Cup!

Great to see a player from my former club Swansea have such a great tournament. He got four assists to add to his goals, and even outshone talisman Wayne Rooney who managed two goals and three assists!

We may have come from behind twice, and eventually run out comfortable winners, but I am not happy. We were sloppy in possession and allowed them to create too many chances. Our next game is away in the Ukraine, and we have to do better.

Without Kyle Walker, Kyle Naughton, and Kieran Gibbs through injury, we had a fair bit of reshuffling to do at the back as we had none of our thre main fullbacks available. Chirs Smalling was therefore moved to rightback and Kyle Bartley started as Phil Jones centre back partner. Leighton Baines, who had not made an appearance since I took over, was recalled to give us some experience at left back. Also ur talisman Wayne Rooney was missing, which meant Jason Malpass started upfront and Danny Welbeck at AMR. It wasn't a great performance at all, but we came away from a tricky game with a 1-0 win, meaning that we headed into the France game still two points ahead of them.

A win against the France would all but ensure qualification for the World Cup. We were again without the players mentioned above, and also Henri Lansbury had picked up a knock against Ukraine, so Josh McEachran came into the side. It proved an inspired move, as with the game heading towards a draw, McEachran slotted home from the edge of the area after a Scott Sinclair pull back with twelve minutes to go. Sinclair then made it 2-0 in stoppage time to more or less seal qualification.

Next up we are away in Lithuania, and we finish the qualifying campaign with a trip to Poland.

Great work winning the Confederations Cup. All seemed destined for you to get knocked out by Brazil but brilliant performance. You also continue to go from strength to strength in your qualifying group .

Great work winning the Confederations Cup. All seemed destined for you to get knocked out by Brazil but brilliant performance. You also continue to go from strength to strength in your qualifying group .

Well i wouldnt have been surprised. They use the so-called "magic box" and just seem to grind results out, no matter who they're up against.

I'm that sure of qualification i've already got two November friendlies set up against Argentina and Ghana.

Qualification secured! Two pretty decent wins, as we were once again missing a few players through injury. We really had to reshuffle upfront against Lithuania, as Wayne Rooney was still missing and Jason Malpass was ruled out with a strain. Still, we ran out comfortable 4-0 winners, with Raheem Sterling grabbing his first goal for his country.

That result ensured our qualification;

Our performance against Poland wasn't very good, but we managed to come away from the Polish capital with a 2-1 victory to finish the group five points ahead of France.

Very surprisingly, Spain missed out on even getting a playoff spot as they were the worst runners-up, and the Netherlands had to settle for a place in the playoffs after finishing second in their group to Germany.

A very good performance against the side currently third in the FIFA World Rankings. Most of their efforts came before they had a man sent off, but a fair few of them were from long rage and not too much trouble for Joe Hart. We kept it well after they went down to ten men and tok the 2-0 win fairly easily.

I may have made a few changes for this game - both Jake Livermore and Ross Barkley made their debuts, and I rested captain Phil Jones, but still the performance was unacceptable. We won via a set piece, with the stand-in captain getting it.

The draw for the World Cup is just days away now. I can't wait to see who we get.

Well I have to go all for it, don't I? The group isn't as easy as it could have been, but we should certainly get through it and from there it's a lottery. I plan to leave the job after the World Cup, so I intend to lead my country to glory.

Wishing you good luck for the upcoming world cup, i believe you can win the major tournament! looking forward to seeing which club team you next become manager of though

Cheers.

Must say i am starting to get itchy feet and eager to get back into club management. So far there have been a few offers, but nothing that has tempted me. There could be a job going free in South Wales soon though.......

I think he said that they came runner up in their group but got the least amount of points out of all the runners up, therefore not making it into the playoffs.

Indeed, he did!

They've had problems at international over the years. Rafa Benitez failed spectacularly at Euro 2016, and then they appointed a regen manager. He is pretty good to be honest, but it just hasn't worked for him at all.

A very good performance from us. Nigeria are a very solid 24th in the FIFA World Rankings, and the beat them in such a fashion was excellent. Raheem Sterling made his first start in an England shirt, and he played well, creating a goal. It looks like he wll certainly make the World Cup squad.

Sterling may be going great, but a couple of players from former club Swansea are struggling right now. Leon Britton, such an important part of the side, is without a club after hs contract was terminated. Josh McEachran is in the reserves and transfer listed, and Henri Lansbury and Kyle Bartley are struggling to get regular starts.

The question is, would you still take them to the World Cup? I am kind of unsure.

The squad is exactly the same as for the Confederations Cup a year ago, with the exception of Raheem Sterling coming into the squad for Jack Robinson. It means we have one less defender, but another attacking option.